


You Did All of This for Me?

by mistleto3



Series: Sarufem!mi [2]
Category: K (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Rule 63, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 05:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6552379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistleto3/pseuds/mistleto3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saruhiko falls ill, and struggles to accept that Misaki wants to take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Did All of This for Me?

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a drabble prompt on tumblr sent by theotakufairy from [this](http://mistleto-3.tumblr.com/post/141143377354/send-me-a-pairing-and-a-number-and-ill-write-you) list.
> 
> This story can also be found on [Tumblr](http://mistleto-3.tumblr.com/post/142787049079/you-did-all-of-this-for-me-sarufemmi)

“You did all of this for me?” Saruhiko asked sceptically, his voice gruff and scratchy as he spoke; his throat was obviously quite raw. He raised an eyebrow at Misaki, who was clutching a shopping bag filled with an arsenal of cold remedies. Honey and ice cream for a sore throat, tissues, more different kinds of painkillers and decongestants than Saruhiko knew existed, a hot water bottle, cough sweets, a blanket, a few DVDs, and ingredients for what Saruhiko guessed was chicken soup. 

“Of course, idiot. You never show it when you’re sick. If you’ve come home from work early that must mean there’s something seriously wrong.” Misaki pushed his hair aside to press her palm to his forehead. “You’re burning up. I told you you need to buy a damn umbrella; it’ll have been getting soaked in that rainstorm the other day that made you sick.” She bustled over to the kitchenette and filled up the kettle to make him a cup of lemon tea sweetened with honey, without bothering to ask whether or not he wanted it. 

“Yeah, whatever.” Saruhiko called over the hissing of the kettle. Ever since they had moved in together, Misaki had been on Saruhiko’s case about his health. First it was his diet, then his habit of staying up to the small hours of the morning, then him overworking himself, and now this. 

Misaki couldn’t resist making a quip about the former. “You know, your immune system would be stronger if you got more vitamins in your diet. From, I don’t know, vegetables or something.” 

Saruhiko clicked his tongue and changed the subject. “How did you even know I came home sick anyway?” 

Misaki came back over to the sofa with the tea and an assortment of cold and flu medication and vitamin supplements. “Take these.” Her tone left no room for argument. “And Awashima-san is a gossip, and she tells Kusanagi-san everything. He mentioned it to me presuming I’d already know. But I didn’t.” She added pointedly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I knew you’d go all I-told-you-so on me.” He tipped the pills into his mouth and chased them all down at once with a mouthful of tea. 

“Because you need to take better care of your health. Remember, you have a roommate now; if you get sick, I’ll probably get sick too living in such close quarters with you.” 

“Thanks for the concern.” He replied sarcastically, and Misaki stuck her tongue out in response as she headed back over to the kitchen. She pulled the bands out of her hair that held it in pigtails, then fastened it back off her face with a bright red bandana that clashed violently with the auburn locks before beginning to preparing the soup. Misaki's skill at cooking was nothing short of shocking to Saruhiko. It seemed like such a housewife-y skill to have, and Misaki was the exact opposite of a housewife-y sort of person. He couldn't help but be surprised when an appetising smell started to waft from the kitchen; even month after they had moved back in together, he hadn’t quite gotten used to her unexpected talent for cooking. Earlier in the day, the smell of street food as he had been walking home from the office had made Saruhiko want to vomit, and yet he found the scent emanating from the pot on the stove almost made him hungry. 

"You know, you're going to far too much trouble. It's only a cold" Saruhiko commented as Misaki sat down on the sofa opposite him, having left the soup to simmer. 

"It's not only a cold; a cold wouldn't wipe you out like this. It looks like the flu to me. Lie down." She commanded, once more in a tone that made it clear that protesting would be futile. 

Saruhiko sighed and laid down on the sofa, and Misaki placed a cloth, damp with cold water, on his forehead and draped the blanket that she had bought over him. "Oi, don't treat me like a child." He grumbled. 

"Then don't act like one and take care of yourself a bit better." Misaki retorted. 

"You didn't need to leave Homra and come home early. I could have looked after myself for a few hours without you and not died." 

Misaki seemed a little surprised by the comment. Him being accepting of her clan, and even actively encouraging her to choose them over him, was still a little foreign to her. "It's fine; I wasn't busy. It was a slow day." 

"Still, you didn't need to leave early to come sit with me. I'm fine." 

"Idiot, I wanted to come and sit with you; I was worried about you." 

"There's no need to be. It's just a bug." 

"You're my best friend; I can't help it." 

Saruhiko sighed, aware that he wasn't going to win this one, and Misaki returned to tend to her soup with a smug expression on her face. When she came back, she had a pair of bowls and a plate of fresh bread rolls (white bread; Saruhiko would complain if he was made to eat brown) balanced between her hands, which she set down on the coffee table. Saruhiko sat up and took a bowl, mumbling a quiet thank you, despite knowing that showing gratitude would make Misaki think that she'd won and had done the right thing by coming home early. Despite his protests, he couldn't help but be grateful for her concern, even if she had taken it completely over the top. 

It felt strange to Saruhiko to have someone care about him like this. Of course, his King and his fellow clansmen showed him concern when they found out he was sick, but they knew very well where his boundaries lay, and knew very well the consequences of crossing them. But Misaki? She would crash straight through them without so much as a thought. Saruhiko was still so unused to being cared for so vehemently by another person. She seemed to care for him more than he cared for himself, more than she cared for herself, and it was a foreign prospect to him. He hadn't had that since... well, since before he and Misaki had begun to drift apart after they joined Homra. 

They spent the rest of the afternoon sitting together on the sofa like that, with Misaki leaning against Saruhiko's shoulder as they watched terrible comedies and demolished the entire tub of ice cream between them. Somehow she had remembered that he only really liked vanilla and had managed to pick his favourite brand, despite that they hadn’t talked about ice cream since before they had fallen out. Saruhiko soon lost track of exactly how long they had been sitting there, but apparently Misaki hadn’t; exactly four hours after his first dose of cold medication, she was pestering him to take more. He gave in quickly, knowing that it would have been futile to resist. Despite her best efforts, his fever worsened as the evening progressed, and she noticed that he was beginning to shiver, though he was doing his best to hide it. 

“Have you got chills?” Misaki turned towards him. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Saruhiko.” She scolded, then got to her feet without waiting for a reply, returning shortly after with a hot water bottle, which she pressed into his hands before dumping another blanket over his shoulders. He sighed in exasperation but did nothing to stop her. Another wave of quiet gratitude welled up in his chest; despite how irritating and patronising it was to be doted over like a child, he decided he could get used to this feeling, knowing that someone cared about him. Still, the prospect of becoming accustomed to this sort of treatment made him nervous; nothing in his life had taught him that he deserved the concern of another person. If anything, he’d learned to expect that if there ever was a rare moment in which another human being showed any sort of empathy for him, he should never allow himself to become accustomed to it, because inevitably, it would soon be over. 

That’s why it surprised him so much to have all of this coming from Misaki, of all people. He had expected her empathy for him to die out when he had burned his Homra insignia, and any embers of it to fade over the years of animosity. It was strange to him that, after all that, the girl who seemed to value her clan above even herself was now putting him before Homra. Once before, she’d shown him that he was her second priority, and although Saruhiko knew that was partly his own fault for not talking to her about his feelings when there was still a chance for them to resolve things amicably, it still stung if he dwelled on it. Yet, here she was, pulling his blanket around her shoulders to share her body heat with him while he was racked by feverish shivers when she could be with her friends in Homra. They had so much more in common with her than he did, and they were more fun to hang around with than a sick, grumpy Saruhiko. And yet, she had chosen him. 

He couldn’t help but let his arm slide around her shoulders and pull her in a little closer; Misaki was always warm. Her arms were bare; she was only wearing her black tank top on the upper half of her body, and Saruhiko found himself idly tracing patterns on the skin of her shoulder, noticing how soft it was. Her hair was soft too, where the long auburn locks tickled his arm. So much about Misaki was contradictory; she was one of the strongest fighters he knew, and a layer of hard, wiry muscle wrapped around her limbs, but she also had soft skin, and she could be gentle and caring enough to be willing to tuck herself under his arm to keep him warm when he was sick. And then in public she was a complete tomboy most of the time, but at home when it was just the two of them, she could act almost like a housewife, even down to the bandana that she fastened her hair back with. Without thinking, Saruhiko slid the fabric off her head gently and smoothed her hair with his fingers. 

“O-oi, what are you doing?” She protested. Her cheeks glowed faintly pink at the sudden intimacy. “Are you delirious or something?” 

“Your hair’s nicer when it’s down.” He commented, running his fingers through it slowly. There was a slight kink in the locks at the nape of her neck where it had been tied in pigtails all day, and the shorter layers in her hair had finally started to regain their volume after being stuffed under her beanie. He really did love her hair, especially the way odd strands caught the light and seemed to shine. It was fiery, just like her.

“I think you’re high on pain meds.” She grumbled, and Saruhiko merely chuckled dismissively, though his wayward thoughts about her hair had him inclined to agree with her. This was another thing that was contradictory about Misaki: her ability to be affectionate one minute, cuddling up with Saruhiko on the couch and insisting on nursing him back to health, and a stereotypical tsundere the next, like a character from a cheesy shoujo manga. Misaki had always been painfully bashful around unfamiliar men, though she was fine with the ones she knew well, like Saruhiko and the rest of Homra, but sometimes she would revert back to being a stuttering schoolgirl if ever Saruhiko was a little more affectionate than she expected (which wasn't often), or if she ever received compliments about her appearance. Saruhiko found it sort of endearing, if in a very amusing way. 

“That’s very possible.” He acknowledged. Though if anything, the pills that Misaki had been practically forcing down his throat to soothe his pounding head and aching joints had made him drowsy more than delirious. The pair of them returned their attention to the television (though Saruhiko glanced down at Misaki every so often to see if she was still blushing. She was.) and after a few minutes, Saruhiko felt his eyelids beginning to flicker closed, and his head starting to droop sideways to lean against Misaki. 

“Oi, Saruhiko, you can’t fall asleep here. Come on, let’s get you to bed.” She pulled him to his feet by his wrist, bundling the blankets up under her other arm, and led him to his bed. His shoulders were still trembling as she tucked the covers back over him. Misaki sighed, and after a moment gave in and got in beside him, pressing her back against his chest and pulling his arm around her. 

“Misaki, you’re going to catch my flu.” Saruhiko protested. 

“You’re still cold and the heating in this place is still as terrible as it was five years ago. I’m not moving.” She said resolutely. 

Saruhiko sighed. “Well, don’t blame me if you get sick.” 

Misaki dropped off to sleep quickly after that, whereas Saruhiko’s drowsiness had almost completely evaporated as soon as he felt her small figure press against his chest. He found himself involuntarily clutching her tighter as the warmth of her body helped to calm the shivers that still racked his frame. It was funny how things changed, he observed to himself; a month ago he wouldn’t even have let her into his bed in the first place, let alone allow her to cuddle up to him like this. Her doting on him in this way dredged up the old memories of when she used to look after him when he was sick in middle school. He was used to those memories being accompanied by a sharp pang as he recalled all the things he didn’t think he’d ever have again. It still surprised him every day to see her smiling at him; he had never expected that they’d be able to put aside their differences, not properly. Not enough for things to go back to being like this. 

But here he was, holding Misaki tightly against him as she slept, trying not to breathe on her in fear of getting her sick too. He could no longer deny the quiet voice in his head that had been telling him he was in love with her, not after he had seen proof that she was putting him first, that he was her most important person again, just as she had always been his. Nobody had ever cared so fiercely about him before. And perhaps that was because he didn’t allow anyone else to care about him, but he didn’t allow Misaki to either. And she had simply ignored his resistance; she barrelled straight through the walls he put up around himself, too dense to comprehend that her concern wasn’t welcome. But it was. And now that he had to accept that, he had started to crave it. Even just her asking if he was okay was cathartic to him. Maybe he was acting too much like a desperate puppy, falling head over heels for the first person who showed him any sort of affection. But in a way he was sort of okay with that. Knowing there was someone in the world who thought he was worth something, who cared about him enough to drop everything and come to his side… he was powerless to do anything but fall in love with her. It had been a foregone conclusion for a long time, but it was only now that he was in a stable enough place to accept it. 

Not that he planned to act on it. For what Saruhiko thought was the first time in his life, things were really, honestly, _good._ He had finally found a place in the world where he fit, and he was learning to let himself accept that. Let himself fit in. Let himself live without fear that it was all going to come tumbling down around his feet, like it had countless times before. 

That’s why he couldn’t say anything. As hard as it would be to spend every day with the girl he loved, and never have her know that he loved her, it could only be better than having everything that was finally falling into place come apart and crumble to dust just when he was starting to have some hope. At least he could be her best friend, and if that was all there was, he could make his peace with that. He closed his eyes, inhaling the faint cinnamon scent of her shampoo as he listened to the slow rhythm of her breathing and began to slip into unconsciousness. 

Saruhiko was startled awake by the sound of a sneeze, which seemed far too loud for the tiny girl it had originated from. Misaki sniffled pitifully and reached for the box of tissues on his bedside table. 

“I told you you were going to get sick.” 

“I don’t care. You stopped shivering, didn’t you?” 

Saruhiko clicked his tongue, glad that Misaki was facing away from him so she wouldn’t see the small smile curving the corners of his lips upward. She was an idiot for caring about him so deeply, but he was more grateful for that than he had ever been for anything else.


End file.
